If you want to find all of it's nuggets go ahead
leave me any suggestions if you have them,
or questions and comments if they are present as well.
no need to make me feel like a god however,
that's what roasting ants with a magnifying glass is for.
And as i already said,
Sean, this is for you.
Nygil McCune
Character Studies: Spring Quarter
Cumulative Paper: Vignette
What is There to Prepare For?
Leonard sat at his small table in the café where he was having his lunch. Pastrami on rye, not that there was anything significant in that; it was the same lunch he had been having for quite some period of time now. No, this would not have been an extraordinary lunch in any fashion had Leonard not spied a kid coming towards him in a wheelchair.
Well, Leonard wasn’t sure if “kid” was the term that one properly applied to a 16 year old, especially when Leonard himself was only 2 years older than
“Hey, Leo,”
Leonard mulled over the correct response to
“Eh, the same as it’s been the last couple months,” Leonard replied. And though he didn’t want to let it come out, Leonard felt the question escape his lips before he could control himself; remnants of social conditioning in his mind forcing him to be polite. “How have you been?”
“Um… Well, that was actually why I came up to you today. Do you remember towards the end of school when I was having a really bad day, and you said all that stuff, Gandhi and whatnot? It really helped me through that day, and I was kind of having a similar situation today… Maybe you could help me again?”
Ok, so maybe Leonard’s relationship with
Leonard could only guess that the situation today was somewhat similar to the last time. In fact just under his T-shirt, Leonard could see a couple bruises on
But what the hell did
Leonard swallowed the bite of his Pastrami on rye, took a deep breath, and opened his mouth to speak…
Nygil McCune
Character Studies: Spring Quarter
Cumulative Paper
What is Necessary to Begin
Throughout the many different aspects of life (religion, political, family, ect.) people place trust in one another. These people that are entrusted with some form of information or task can come in many varied shapes, sizes, influences, and denominations themselves, but nonetheless, people trusting one another seem to be inextricably part of any human society. Someone who has been entrusted with a task or intimate details of another’s life can provide many things, such as action and inspiration, and these actions can result with either positive or negative ends. The purpose of the previous statement is not to debate the beneficial or malevolent natures of people who have trust placed in them, but merely to establish that that these people can provide qualities and assurance to life.
Obviously there are some aspects of life where trust does not have an equal influence in one’s life. For example: the things expected from the trust one places in a politician are not the same things expected from a family member. Trust also has different expectations for different distances and contact between people; the trust for someone who is present everyday in one’s life will have different expectations that the trust placed in someone who is only seen once a month. This wide spectrum of expectations for trust is one of the reasons that trust can be a difficult thing to write about, but for the purposes of this exploration the focus will be primarily on trust of a more intimate nature between people who are in close contact.
With the focus of this essay clarified we can now move on to the role that one entrusts another person. As described above, people who have trust placed in them are capable of directing human life; this is a power entrusted to anyone who is asked for advice, and this power can be used for either benevolent or malevolent ends. An example of this idea can be seen between the interaction of the characters Iago and Othello in Shakespeare’s play “Othello.” Once Othello is promoted to be a commander of an army, Iago becomes envious of his former companion. Iago’s envy compels him to lie and deceive Othello and the other characters in order to ruin Othello’s life. An interesting part of this play is that it clearly demonstrates that trust does not have to follow hierarchical power structures. Trust can cause people to take the advice of those closest to them, no matter what their ranking is. As demonstrated by the play however, once trust is put into the advice of another person, that person then possess power in some quantity. Power, as it is best understood, is merely an abstract idea that represents the potential to act or change something. This potential is neither inherently good nor bad, but as “Othello” demonstrates, once a person entrusts another, that person has the potential to mislead the trusting person.
This is by no means an insinuation that people who have been entrusted to assist others will attempt to misdirect others. Ideally (or at least theoretically) the art of entrusting someone is a long, trying process. Iago and Othello had been friends for quite some time before the events mentioned in the play take place. It is this mature rapport that drives Othello to take Iago’s word over his new bride Desdemona’s. So as demonstrated in “Othello,” trusting someone with the task of assisting one’s self can be a very risky endeavor that results in shambles. Of course, this play is only one of hundreds of stories in which the issue of trust is brought up. There are numerous literary and historical cases in which a character places trust in another human being, and is subsequently castigated for this action. There are also numerous examples, both fictitious and real, in which the same scenario as above takes place, but instead of being reprimanded for his or her trust, the character is rewarded for making such a relationship with another person. It would appear as though the entire world is split as to whether or not placing trust in a fellow human being is a good or bad action.
With there being numerous examples of trust helping someone, and equally numerous examples of it hurting someone, when does one decide that it is worth it to entrust another person with providing direction into his or her life? Soren Kierkegaard seems to believe that it is not necessary for humans to assist one another in their lives when he says in Fear and Trembling, “if the generation would only concern itself about its task [in his case: the quest to find faith, in this one: learning to live in general], which is the highest thing it can do, it cannot grow weary, for the task is always sufficient for a human life” (131). While Kierkegaard was talking primarily about faith, he mentions that faith is an act of passion. In fact, he states that faith is “the highest passion in a man” (130). So far these points seem rather tangential to the previous discussion. But are not most of the issues that we seek advice for on issues of “passion”? Are not most of the hardest issues we deal with in life issues of “passion”? In this sense Kierkegaard’s discussion carries through much more than his debate of faith. By saying that “no generation has learned from another to love” it can be seen that emotions are an individual experience (130). Undoubtedly there are multiple people who experience similar emotions, but it can be quite doubtful that these people all arrived at these emotions and can alleviate them in a duplicate manner. So while one person can describe one’s own struggles and over comings, another person will never be able to vicariously live these own experiences to alleviate his or her own. All of these points collide to demonstrate that learning how to live is an experience that will last an individual his or her entire lifetime. Kierkegaard goes even further to chastise those who assist one another by saying that “the false knight of faith readily betrays himself by this proficiency in guiding which he has acquired in an instant” (90). What was meant in this is that humans have a very narrow window into the world; our understanding of events is really just a single drop of water in a continually shifting ocean. Furthermore he writes, “The knight of faith is obliged to rely upon himself alone, he feels the pain of not being able to make himself intelligible to others, but he feels no vain desire to guide others” (90). One who actually understands the issues of passion that are present in human existence knows the futility of trying to make his or her life a prescribed method of living.
Such thoughts truly are bleak and disheartening to even the most tenacious of individuals. Throughout, Kierkegaard himself seems to feel the dreary state of following such a path, at times even seeming to be incredulous at his own ideals. Yet, this sorrow seems to be a pivotal point in human life. Kierkegaard reasons that it is human to be sorrowful and downhearted, yet, through perseverance one can become a great individual (32).
Since learning to deal with one’s passions is an individual, emotional experience that cannot be attained vicariously, it seems as though entrusting others to assist one’s self is not even necessary for one to attain a better understanding and control over one’s passions. Yet, it should be asked whether or not the world would actually be in a better place if no humans assisted one another in their individual struggles. It seems highly doubtful that such a reality would be considered better than the one we currently occupy if people walled up their questions and advice within themselves. Kierkegaard’s own ideas don’t fully support this end. The rules that he lays down are concerned primarily with his idea of a “knight of faith.” In his mind, a “knight of faith” is someone who has attained perfect understanding of his passions already: a paradox when this idea is laid beside his statement that understanding and controlling passion is a lifelong process for a human. If such a quest is to last an individual his or her lifetime, how is one to become a “knight of faith” while still being a human with plenty of years still to be lived? This action, it would seem, is reserved for the divine figures of holy texts, and Kierkegaard’s flights of imagination as to how such understanding would manifest itself in a person.
This idea of humans never placing trust in one another seems preposterous. If, as Kierkegaard stated, learning how to control one’s passions is such a tedious, lifelong process, it seems doubtful that a few moments in which one provides assistance to another could actually have a devastating effect on the overall control one would achieve at the end of his or her life. Moreover, Kierkegaard’s use of the term “false knight of faith” in his condemnation of those who speak of “that which they have acquired in an instant, lends itself to the interpretation that a “false knight” is not an everyday person struggling with his or her own issues, but instead a person that profess to have the utmost insight and presents themselves as an example to live by; someone corrupt in their attempts to help others.
This is quite the paradoxical statement indeed. How exactly is it possible that one can be corrupt in wanting to help others? As stated above, when one person is entrusted to assist another person (or with any task really) the person entrusted gains some form of power. In A Stone of Hope, David Chappell references Reinhold Niebuhr, and says that “it was necessary to corrupt oneself in order to get power” (31). As said above, one can gain power by being entrusted with a task from another person. Also as stated above, this is neither a good nor bad circumstance; power is potential, and without potential nothing would ever be accomplished. But this perilous necessity of corrupting one’s self is one that Albert Camus seems to fully understand in his book The Plague, when he has his character, Tarrou, say that “’we can’t stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody’” (252). To render this statement into more philosophical terms; Kant says that one must respect that all sentient life as ends in themselves, and that to treat them instead as means is a perturbation of their natural state (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 95). On this level all beings have a nearly limitless power within themselves. Yet, when one places trust (even temporarily) in another person, he or she hands over some of that nearly limitless power to the other person. That person now has entrusted his or herself to the ends of another person, and has consequently become a means to the entrusted person’s ends; now helpless to be either rewarded or exploited. This is true with all levels and types of trust, be it from simple friendships to complex political and religious followings. So to return back to Kierkegaard from this exploration, it appears that he really has no qualm with people helping one another discover the most helpful ways of life; he himself set out to do so with his book. Yet, he recognized that one must be humbly aware of the fact that he or she is not a true “knight of faith,” and that serious responsibilities are entailed when one becomes an entrusted person. Though perhaps it would be better still to not seek out to be a trusted guiding power in another’s life, but to instead nurture and cherish any trust that a fellow human decides to bestow upon another. In this way there is minimal corruption taking place on the part of the entrusted, and the trust bestowed can become something far more special in itself.
Nonetheless, the desire to help out others in their struggles seems to be an imbedded part of the human character; Albert Camus’s characters demonstrate this imbedded aspect all throughout the aforementioned Plague. When the plague forces the town’s gates to be closed, the denizens of Oran turn towards one another, in ways that they previously had not before, in order to find comfort and meaning in the struggle against the plague. Camus even encourages people to help one another in times of struggle. When the character Rambert is told that there is nothing shameful about him leaving the city to be happy with his wife, who is outside the quarantine zone, Rambert replies, “‘Certainly, but it may be shameful to be happy by one’s self’” (209). Taken another way: What good is it for one to prosper while others still dwell in a state of suffering? This question is a repeated theme throughout the book, and gives support to the idea that humans should help one another because, “[the] public welfare is merely the sum total of the private welfares of each of us” (88). Interestingly enough, the character Rambert initially uses this argument to justify his desire to leave the quarantined city and rejoin his wife. Later on in the story though, when Rambert realizes that his colleague, Rieux, was in a very similar situation, Rambert understands that by sacrificing a small portion of his individual well being he can make the public well being far better.
This is splendid news indeed, for the examples given in The Plague demonstrate that individuals have the capacity to assist one another, and make general life easier for all involved. But this has only established, as a counter-point to initial observations of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, that humans appear to have a need to assist one another, and that this need may be a beneficial facet of existence. Emphasis is placed on the word “may,” because, as stated above, there are numerous examples in which this need has brought about circumstances with no beneficial outcome. So the question still remains: When does one decide that it is worth it to entrust another person with providing direction into his or her life? Answers to this question can be found throughout numerous literary and historical tales, and the root of this question seems to lie at the more basic issue of a person’s own motivation. This issue brings up the subsequent issue that if more than one motivation exists for entrusting someone with providing advice and direction, then there obviously must be more than one type of trust.
Thankfully, such issues have already been explored in great depth by numerous people before this time. Aristotle wrote of such issues in his Nicomachean Ethics under the chapter of “Friendship”. One of the first things written in this chapter is the phrase, “[friendship] is most necessary for our life” (119). However, this idea of “friendship” that is put forth by Aristotle will not fully answer the question explored by this essay because Aristotle primarily explores reciprocal friendships, while trust is not required to act reciprocally (while at present this statement may seem to be contradictory it will be understood later), as is demonstrated when he writes “If they are to be friends, then they must have goodwill to each other” (121). Nonetheless, Aristotle’s work will provide a steady foundation for this exploration, because for a friendship to take place one must first place trust in another that the goodwill shown towards him or her will not be misused.
The first type of “friendship” brought up by Aristotle is a friendship of utility, or of “those who love for utility or pleasure” (121). This type of a friendship is based upon a single person cozies up to another in order to enhance his or her own well being. In all practicality, calling such a relationship a “friendship” was quite a generous stretch, and Aristotle wrote that these friendships dissolve after the enhancement of one’s well being ceases. A friendship of pleasure is Aristotle’s second type of friendship, and it is based off of a reciprocal desire for pleasurable experiences. This type of friendship seems to be the relationship predominantly attributed to lovers, and can dissolve when a person’s interpretations of pleasure change. The final type of friendship brought into play by Aristotle was the “complete friendship”. This type of friendship is one that is reciprocal between two equals, and that the individuals are friends not for their own sake, but for the sake of their partners (121-123).
Using Aristotle to look at some of the previous works mentioned in this essay brings an interesting light to some of the stories. While it is never detailed in “Othello” what caused Othello and Iago to form a friendship, one can only assume that they were once quite close friends who had met in the barracks. But after Othello becomes promoted to a higher ranking position than Iago, gaps in goodwill form and the friendship promptly disintegrates from a “complete friendship” to a “utility friendship”. Should Othello have realized this change in friendship he might have been able to prevent the disaster that befell him. However, his trust in the previous bond blinds him to the rumblings of the ground beneath his house of cards. While Shakespeare’s tale is an example of the fact that trust does not need to be reciprocated to exist (this is only a brief example of this point; a more thorough one will be brought up), it seems as though the issue of trust’s causation is an elusive vagabond. This could be due to the fact that trust seems paramount to the formation of friendship, and that “Othello” is not a story of such circumstances. “Othello” is a tale of the blinding nature of trust, and only begs further for the origins of trust to be sought out.
Camus’ Plague on the other hand, is a story of the circumstances that nurture trust’s formation. In this story there are two events that will be focused on, the first being the relationship between Rambert and Rieux. The relationship between the two begins as more of what Aristotle would define as a “utility friendship”. Rambert requests three things from Rieux: the first is some information that might lead to a story that Rambert can publish as a reporter, and the second is for help in escaping the city’s quarantine zone. These two requests benefit Rambert solely, and are what classify these characters’ relationship as one of utility. The third request comes as the manifest of Rambert’s decision to place trust in the advice and actions of Rieux, and evolves their friendship closer towards Aristotle’s exceptional “complete friendship”. This request is that Rambert is allowed to work alongside Rieux. The cause of this sudden change of character is because Rambert realizes that Rieux’s situation in the disease ridden town is not much different from his own. So it seems from this illustration that one reason that a person entrusts another is through a realization that the individuals share a similar struggle, bond, or goal.
The second primary example of trust in The Plague involves the characters Tarrou and Rieux. This example begins with Tarrou asking, “’Rieux, do you realize that you’ve never tried to find out anything about me—the man I am? Can I regard you as a friend?’” (245). From here Tarrou entrusts Rieux with a tale of his life, and the two of them discuss various philosophical sentiments among themselves from here. This entrusting is a rapid and startling event that appears to even catch Rieux off guard with its abrupt beginning. After Tarrou’s tale, two ideas are offered to explain exactly why Tarrou entrusted Rieux with this information. The first of these is that, as Tarrou says, “Yes, we’re both after the same thing, but I’m less ambitious,” and the second is that Tarrou expresses interest in becoming a saint (255). Out of these two sentiments it can be guessed that, much like the situation between Rambert and Rieux, Tarrou sensed a common bond between the two of them, and that Tarrou has a problem in which he believes Rieux can assist him with better understanding.
Both of these points seem to fully warrant the action of entrusting another person, but perhaps there is a third, additional motivation behind Tarrou’s actions. This point is more clearly articulated in Toni Morrison’s tale Beloved. In the tale Paul D arrives at 124 to find a woman named Sethe whom he used be a fellow slave with on a plantation. The two begin telling their stories to one another, and while it is possible to say that they entrust one another simply because the two of them shared common bonds of bondage, it would seem that the motivations run deeper than that. When Paul D first returns, Sethe asks herself “Would it be alright to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count on something?” (38). From the moment that Paul D returns he begins to support her burdens and know her scars, as illustrated by his cupping her breasts and kissing the massive scar on her back when he is standing in her kitchen, so that she can do more than simply keep her past at bay. Sethe needs to entrust the story of what happened to her to someone else so that she can quit harboring such pain by herself, and move on to a state of mind where she is free to love and cherish life, and have a future. This very need is symbolized by the sudden discovery of the girl who comes to be known as “Beloved”. Sethe begins to tell the story of her pains to Paul D, but she stops short of telling the full tale. Then Beloved’s sudden existence demands an explanation for the rest of the story harbored by Sethe. This need for one to entrust in another could have been an additional motivation in Tarrou’s entrusting of Rieux.
Yet, in Beloved, Sethe’s story almost destroys her when she dwells within it too far. This idea of letting a story destroy one’s self is put forth is Paul D’s thoughts, “saying more might push them both into a place they couldn’t get back from” (72). Once Sethe opened the wounds of her past she failed to properly close them. Instead she continued to dig and pick at the open sores of her past, ripping open the remaining decent flesh and making it part of the wound as well. This is illustrated in the third part of the book, where Beloved becomes violent towards Sethe, and it becomes clear that Beloved intends to drag Sethe down with the shame of Sethe’s past actions. At this point the relationship between Sethe and Beloved turns sour, much in the same way as the aforementioned relationship between Othello and Iago. Yet despite all of the malevolence Beloved shows towards Sethe, Sethe continues to let Beloved close to her; another example that trust does not need to be reciprocated for it to exist. In this scenario it seems as though Sethe put too much trust in the wrong thing, she had begun to entrust Paul D, yet she stopped short and put too much trust in what was actually hurting her most.
Yet, what was it about Paul D that actually made him so trust worthy? And for that matter, why was Camus’ character Rieux the center of trust as well? In Beloved, Paul D is described as a very compassionate man. Paul D's state seems to be a mystery, even to him, as the book says, “he had become the kind of man who could walk into a house and make women cry… There was something blessed in his manner” (17). While Morrison never fully explains what caused this blessed manner, there are a few reasons as to why this manner exists in his character. It could be the fact that Paul D encountered quite a few hardships in his time, and that these hardships manifested themselves in his speech, walk, or stare. Or his mannerisms could stem from the fact that he keeps his own emotions sealed away and believes himself void of a heart, so that he essentially becomes an “emotional black hole” and draws others’ emotions to the surface. As for what makes Rieux’s character so trust worthy, he appears to be a rather humble doctor; shouldering his own burdens quietly while willingly assisting others with their own. When the characters Tarrou and Rambert begin to entrust Rieux, it is obvious that they share common bonds.
Both of these things are true of both Paul D and Rieux, but a curious difference between the two of them is that while Paul D reciprocally entrusts Sethe, Rieux doesn’t seem to entrust anyone else within the story (with the exception of the reader, but in a great sense both stories entrust the reader with a tale). While Paul D is considerably quieter with his entrusting than Sethe, he still commits this act far more than Rieux. Rieux seems to refuse to share the story of his life with the other characters in The Plague. When Rambert is so vehemently insisting that he suffers greatly from being separated from his wife, Rieux does not indulge the fact that he as well is suffering from a similar separation; Rambert has to be told this information through a third party. Yet, as stated before, perhaps this is not because Camus wants Rieux to seem deprived of the need to entrust people, but because instead the mere telling of this the tale is Rieux’s act of entrusting. Perhaps Rieux’s entrusting is not of a common bond, or of an idea that advice can be sought from another person, but it is just like Sethe’s in the fact that it is a story that needs to be told. Both of these characters, however, do not seek to be entrusted, and perhaps this is because they understand the corruption that this would create in themselves, but they accept the trust given to them humbly and nurture it into something greater. Maybe this is ultimately what makes them so naturally trustworthy.
Out of these three roots of trust: a common bond, recognition of a helpful individual, and a need to entrust, it can be seen that perhaps Aristotle was on the correct track by stating, “When a good person becomes a friend he becomes a good for his friend. Each of them loves what is good for himself, and repays in equal measure the wish and the pleasantness of his friend” (Nicomachean Ethics, 125). This idea of becoming a “good for one’s friend” is a brilliant metaphor for the change of power when one entrusts another person. This sentiment also expresses the idea that all of these roots of trust act for the well being of the one who entrusts; in each of the stories presented above trust was given to another on the hope of the improvement of his or her well being.
Yet, Aristotle’s statement fails to properly highlight another aspect that all three of these roots share: the vulnerability and humility one person experiences in trusting another person. The aspect of vulnerability was present in all of these situations through the understanding that a power shift has just occurred within the relationships of each of these people. In each of the stories a person also reaches a state of humility as the act of entrusting another begins. For Rambert it was the realization that he was not the only person who suffered, Othello realized that he possessed doubts within himself; Sethe’s eyes are fully reopened to the idea that she did a terrible thing, and Tarrou openly admits that while he may understand a great deal, he is unsure of how to act against the atrocities he sees. Even the very aloof character Creon in Sophocles’ play of “Oedipus the King” has a humbling experience through trust. After Oedipus gouges out his eyes and requests exile, Creon tells Oedipus, “I’d have done that already, I promise you./ First I wanted the god to clarify my duties” (Lines 1573-1574). At this line Oedipus responds that the god had already gave a command, to which Creon replies, “So he did. Still, in such a crisis/ it’s better to ask precisely what to do” (Lines 1578-1579). The tremendously tragic and shocking situation of Oedipus’s self mutilation makes Creon realize that even he with all his power reached a situation where he did not know precisely what to do, and that someone else needed to be consulted.
Perhaps it is this state of being vulnerable and humble that truly defines when trust is occurring, regardless of under what other conditions it occurs. Surely there are many other conditions than the three aforementioned roots of trust brought up in this exploration that explains why people place trust in one another; humans have many needs and we may fill them using a variety of different means, and deciding when it is worth the potential consequences to place trust in someone seems more like an issue of personal discretion than something that can be repeatedly formulated. Some might be quick to write parts of the previous statement off as an example of the selfishness of human action. But under the light given to us by these characters it seems apparent that trusting is not a selfish action in the least. Trusting is the exact opposite of a selfish action, even if the result is helpful to an individual, because of the emotions that are present during its enactment. During the enactment of entrusting another person, one opens him or herself to misuse and manipulation by the other person; a great risk of harm is present. Exposing one’s self to risk and giving power to another person could never be viewed as a selfish action, and so regardless of the actual outcome or the reasons trust was placed, trusting someone will always be a selfless action. As so helpfully demonstrated by the characters brought up in this exploration, this selfless action is one of humility and vulnerability, and genuine trust can always be discerned by the presence of these emotions.
What Aristotle said about friendship being necessary could definitely be true, and trusting someone is the first step in creating friendships. Throughout all of the literary examples there seems to be something natural about the characters placing trust in one another. In “Othello,” the love between Othello and Desdemona came from her sympathy towards Othello when he told her some of the stories of his life. The relationship between Paul D and Sethe in Beloved seems very similar to this as well, and even the relationship between Tarrou and Rieux in The Plague feels as though it comes from a similar vein to the previous examples. All of these relationships create a situation in which a person’s burdens are split shouldered between the person and another. And as can be seen through the relationship of Paul D and Sethe, this sharing of a load helps both of them deal with their own troubles. Yet, as was also shown through the relationship between these two characters, the act of entrusting another person can be a perilous one that can endanger the stability of a person when burdens are shared from deeper within one’s self. But overall the development of these relationships and the stories shared between the characters suggest that there are things in human life that are not meant to be carried and dealt with by one’s self. So while the exact conditions that are present that enable one to lower his or her defenses and trust another person will vary between people, it can be seen that this act of making one’s self vulnerable and humble to another person can be extremely beneficial, if not necessary, to human existence.
Nygil McCune
Character Studies: Spring Quarter
Cumulative Paper: Epilogue
To Return to the Beginning
This paper is dedicated to Sean Brown.
I don’t honestly believe that I will ever fully understand the idea of trusting someone. And furthermore, I don’t think that I ever wish to. But I do know that trust is going to be a present force throughout the rest of my life, and that even if I can never comprehend it, I should at least come to some terms with it. I suppose that’s what I strived for in this paper. Though, because I don’t believe that I will ever fully understand trust I can’t help but to wonder if I truly discovered something, or merely awakened a bit of myself that has become dormant beneath the turmoil of a freshman year at college.
When I look at this paper I see it almost as a classic song for piano in a minor key; the paper seems to build tension within itself and then release within the next couple paragraphs. The most obvious example of this is in the section where I initially introduce Kierkegaard’s work from Fear and Trembling. The tension is within the idea that someone who understands everything will never be able to share his or her knowledge with another living soul, and that perhaps we should follow in the footsteps of such a person to attain enlightenment. While on some level I agree with such a sentiment, I do not believe that what was put forth by Kierkegaard was wholly true. Nonetheless, it was the fact that on some level I did agree with Kierkegaard that created some form of tension within myself. Just as in the paper, this tension became released gradually, until I had read Camus’ Plague. Going through that book I then remembered what it was that I had thought about trusting one another, and about many aspects of faith in general: there is nothing wrong with (and for some it should be a priority) reaching out and attempting to be a reflection of the divine, but we must above all remember that we are still fallible humans who can become lost and flounder in our existence. The Plague put out, in basic, existential terms, that we should do what we can to comfort those fellow humans who are floundering and fumbling at times, and that through doing this we may lessen the struggle of existence for all.
While Camus’ book dealt primarily with the issue of helping others out in times of crisis, it does not deal with assisting one’s self, which is what entrusting another person does. This is where Beloved came in. Through the character of Sethe we can see that some stories need to be told to another in order for one to actually function as an ideal human should. One of the reasons that this was my favorite book of the year was through the way that it functions and unfolds itself: the beginning is convoluted dissonance, yet out of that conglomeration of past and present a sincere train of though emerges, and characters begin the process of releasing inner burdens and trusting one another. But what truly makes this story my favorite is how the character Sethe becomes drawn to the brink of destruction through her attempt at unleashing her burdens. Beloved demonstrates, better than many other things that I have read, the danger of making one’s self too vulnerable to the troubles that one has within his or herself when entrusting another person. This aspect of trust is a tension within trust itself, and can be seen as one of the reasons some people have difficulties placing trust within another person.
But another thing that Beloved demonstrates so well, is the helpfulness of sharing one’s burdens with another person; Sethe comes back from the brink of her destruction, convinced that she has lost everything, but is then told by Paul D that she is her own everything. Sethe is opened to the idea that her tragedies of the past are not what defines herself, but that she is the one who defines herself. Nevertheless, she would have never reached this epiphany without the struggle that lead her into the dark wells of her past acts, and it was the unburdening to Paul D that set this journey in motion and brought her to the final realization.
I’m still not entirely convinced that placing trust in someone is necessary as Aristotle stated, but I do think that it can play a large beneficial role in a person having an idea of a future and being mentally healthy. That is of course if someone’s trust is accepted humbly and nurtured and cherished by the entrusted person. I do not have any real arguments about how I do not believe trust is not necessary, but more or less leave it in the column of “not impossible but improbable”.
Along a somewhat similar train of thought, I do not know that we could ever really know what mindset a person has to be in order to entrust another person. This is one of the reasons that I don’t believe I will ever fully grasp the issue of trust. As I said, there surely are wide spectrums of circumstances that enable one to make a judgment call about trusting another. And really, that’s what trusting another person is: a judgment call that we hope works out for the best. However, I do believe that there are things in human life that cannot be dealt with solely by one’s self; Toni Morrison would probably concur. And it is when we are dealing with these moments, that we must really hope that our best judgment is being made as to who is actually trustworthy. So with this paper I don’t think that I really laid down any kind of groundwork that I believe people should follow, nor was that really my intention come to think of it. But I hope that after one has read through this they find the particular moments of their own lives where they realize there is a need of another person to split a burden between, and then find someone to share with.
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